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And Family Research Council President Ken Connor is still criticizing the bill with faint praise: "I am confident that were it not for the leadership of groups like FRC, Focus on the Family, Prison Fellowship, and, in particular, FRC's Government Affairs division led by Vice President Connie Mackey, the AIDS bill the Senate passed yesterday would have been a complete disaster. … The AIDS bill is not perfect, but it is vastly better than what might have passed." Connor earlier said the bill's amendments made a "bad bill palatable," but in neither case has he said exactly what's still wrong with the bill.

Weblog doesn't know what Connor doesn't like, but here are a few criticisms floating around: it only authorizes the funds and doesn't actually appropriate them (that comes in later budget bills); it takes money away from other relief programs; and only 20 percent of the funds will go to preventing AIDS and HIV infections.

Still, it's a dramatic step in the right direction. "As history looks back at this day or this year on senators in this body, will we be able to say that we did everything possible to reverse the course of that destruction?" Frist said during Friday's debate. "I think at the end of this day, we will say yes."

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May (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47